Mutiny
Mutiny can be defined as an unlawful attempt by military personnel to seize or overthrow military authority. For purposes of this article, mutiny refers specifically to any attempt by a starship's crewmembers to illegally take control of the vessel from its captain. Historically, mutiny was, and still is considered to be one of the gravest offenses that a member of the military can commit. In the past, those accused of it would face a court martial, and if convicted, faced severe punishment, up to and including the death sentence (though by the 22nd, 23rd and 24th centuries, capital punishment had been abolished and thus was not a sentencing option for convicted mutineers). Acts of mutiny in present day Starfleet were considered nearly unimaginable and extremely rare. ( ) Garth of Izar Fleet Captain Garth of Izar told Captain Kirk that following his learning of the techniques of cellular metamorphosis on Antos IV, the crew of the starship he commanded mutinied against him. Garth, who had gone insane, ordered the destruction of Antos IV, but the crew did not carry out his orders and relieved of command. Garth was committed to a Federation rehabilitation colony on Elba II. ( ) :Given Garth's mental state at the time he made this claim to Kirk, it's possible that Garth's assertion of an outright mutiny by his crew was grossly exaggerated. At that point in time, there had been no records of a starship mutiny in Starfleet history, according to Spock and Chekov in . The Pegasus incident In 2358, the . under the command of Erik Pressman. had been testing an interphase cloaking device. This highly secretive project was against the Treaty of Algeron and was extremely dangerous to the ship's crew. This dangerous situation came to a head with most of the Pegasus officers holding a mutiny against Pressman. William Riker was the only bridge officer to defend the captain; however, a few other crew members joined Riker and Pressman from various sections of the ship. The Pegasus seemed to explode moments after their escape pods were launched. The mutineers went down with the ship. The Starfleet Judge Advocate General later investigated the Pegasus incident, but the survivors withheld all information about the interphase cloaking device. The Starfleet Judge Advocate General was only able to conclude that there had been a mutiny aboard the Pegasus prior to its destruction and that it was likely the survivors were not telling the complete truth. It was recommended that there be a further investigation; however, due to the sensitive nature of the interphase cloaking device experimentation, Starfleet Intelligence quickly classified the report and no follow-up was ever conducted. ( ) The Telepathic Archive The newly-discovered Bajoran wormhole, which provided instant access to and from the Gamma Quadrant, inspired many exploration missions, but one Klingon expedition ended in tragic mutiny. Upon returning from the Gamma Quadrant, the cruiser was badly damaged and only its first officer survived. He was beamed aboard Deep Space 9 shortly before his ship exploded, and although he died within moments, he managed to utter one word: "Victory." Unbeknownst to both the Klingons and the crew of Deep Space 9, the cruiser had discovered a telepathic log from a long-dead civilization, and when the first officer was beamed aboard the station, he brought it with him. The same mutiny which had destroyed his ship became to manifest itself aboard the station as tensions between Major Kira Nerys and Commander Benjamin Sisko escalated to unusually high levels. Loyalties were split primarily along Federation and Bajoran lines, with Chief O'Brien being Sisko's closest ally but Lieutenant Commander Dax siding with Kira. The only members of the senior staff not involved were Constable Odo and Doctor Bashir; while Odo was unaffected by the telepathic field, Bashir appeared to have been affected by someone who had been neutral or otherwise more interested in his own well being in the ancient civilization. As Odo realized what was going on and both Kira and O'Brien courted him for his loyalty, he began to discover the cause of the mutiny as he pieced together damaged log entries from the Klingon ship. He and Bashir came up with a plan to remove the telepathic field, although Bashir was more interested in gaining a personal advantage than saving the other crew members. Odo used his favorable position among both sides to lure them both into a cargo bay, where he activated the program to remove the field. Everyone but Odo, including Bashir, appeared to suffer a massive headache when it was activated, and a purple energy field was released from their bodies. None of them remembered what had happened. Telling them to grab hold of something secure, Odo opened the cargo bay door enough to allow the field to be sucked into the vacuum of space, saving the station and its crew. ( ) The Maquis and the USS Voyager When the Maquis crew of the Val Jean and the Starfleet crew of the merged to create one crew in the Delta Quadrant, thoughts of a Maquis mutiny were constant initially. When B'Elanna Torres attacked Joseph Carey in 2371, a number of Maquis crewmembers, including Seska and Jarvin, were in support of a mutiny if Chakotay was to perform one. This did not go forth. ( ) Vedek Teero Anaydis In 2377, Teero Anaydis, a radical Bajoran Vedek who was determined to fight the Cardassians, engineered a plan to cause a Maquis mutiny on the USS Voyager. Teero Anaydis had been kicked out of the Maquis earlier for experimenting with mind control as a means of getting new agents. Afterwards, the Dominion crushed the Maquis resistance in the Alpha Quadrant so Teero Anaydis turned his attention to the Delta Quadrant and the stranded Starfleet vessel whose crew, many of whom were Maquis, had contact with the Federation. In 2370, he had implanted suppressed memory commands into Tuvok at a colony near the Badlands. These commands would activate when Tuvok heard a certain Bajoran chant. Teero Anaydis triggered the suppressed commands in Tuvok in 2377 by embedding a subliminal message consisting of the chant into a letter to Tuvok from his son Sek. Tuvok then used Vulcan mind melds to implant these commands into the other Maquis members of the crew. Voyager was almost taken by Teero Anaydis and his new 'recruits', however Tuvok managed to reclaim control of his mind and used the mind meld technique to stop the mutiny by returning the minds of the other Maquis crew members to normal. ( ) * See also: Insurrection Alpha USS Equinox In 2376, Maxwell Burke, first officer of the , mutinied against Captain Rudolph Ransom after Ransom had ordered the remnants of his crew to surrender to the USS Voyager. Burke wished to continue killing nucleogenic lifeforms to fuel the Equinox's enhanced warp drive, an action which Ransom initially supported, but later realized was against both Starfleet principles and his conscience. While Burke asked Ensign Marla Gilmore to take Ransom to the brig, she instead escorted him to engineering and informed him she was still on his side. Ransom arranged to beam Gilmore along with other crew members not in shielded areas to Voyager. Burke and others with him on the bridge were killed by the nucleogenic lifeforms while attempting to reach the Equinox's shuttlebay. Ransom went down with his ship. ( ) External link * de:Meuterei Category:Law Category:Crimes